The Revived Rogue could be really cool, but it just feels like a random smattering of powers a player would try to sell the DM on that don't make a lot of sense. Bolts from the grave specifically feels out of place. How does resurrected thief translate to shooting lasers at people? Something that involved a cold grip or damage resist, regenerative properties maybe?
The class kinda reminds me of The Crow. Even if it blatantly aped some of the abilities from that movie, it would feel more thematically relevant.
Pretty much this. I actually quite like the idea of Bolts from the Grave, but it doesn't make sense coming from someone who is "revived"... but also the whole concept of the revived is strange because revivification is a fairly common thing at high level DnD and these powers clearly don't come from that.
They need to focus on a specific thing, and a Rogue who can speak to the spirits of those they kill is a pretty cool concept (it's almost like that ability in Assassin's Creed where you have a conversation with the person you just gutted). Maybe just make it so that your Sneak Attack damage is necromantic and if you were to kill an enemy with it you can capture their soul for interrogation/gaining abilities. Once you are done with the soul you can expend it into an AOE fear nuke or something.
Now, to swing this conversation back to Psionics: Repurposing Bolts from the Grave into a reaction that shoots PSYCHIC lasers... that could be fairly interesting. Not sure what kind of class it would be attached to though. Maybe call it Aneurism and can only be used if you didn't use sneak attack in your last turn. Using your reaction to fire this bolt will force the opponent to make a Int saving throw and if they fail they take full sneak attack damage and are stunned until the end of your next turn (allowing you to have advantage on your next attack and thus MORE sneak attack damage). Actually, if you lifted some of the features from the Revived and placed them into a Psionic class and it would make WAY more sense.
Take Tokens from Last Lives and rename it Reformat. Instead of gleaning things from passed lives your just use psionics to reprogram your brain while sleeping. Bolts from the Grave becomes Aneurism. Give this new class the Telepathy from Soul Knife at level 3. Then just make the class a more Support based Rogue like the Mastermind with abilities that allow you to read surface thoughts OR delve deeper into a victim's mind for more psychic damage. You could even roll in things like Jlwofl2's Puppeteer idea and have it so that you eventually can take over your victim's body psionically.
See, this is why I want Psionics available to every class in the game. Such a diverse, untapped power fantasy that we don't really have yet besides the Great Old One Warlock.
The Revived Rogue could be really cool, but it just feels like a random smattering of powers a player would try to sell the DM on that don't make a lot of sense. Bolts from the grave specifically feels out of place. How does resurrected thief translate to shooting lasers at people? Something that involved a cold grip or damage resist, regenerative properties maybe?
The class kinda reminds me of The Crow. Even if it blatantly aped some of the abilities from that movie, it would feel more thematically relevant.
Pretty much this. I actually quite like the idea of Bolts from the Grave, but it doesn't make sense coming from someone who is "revived"... but also the whole concept of the revived is strange because revivification is a fairly common thing at high level DnD and these powers clearly don't come from that.
How commonplace revivification is depends on the campaign and DM's prerogative. Spells that bring people back from the dead are extremely rare in my campaigns simply because it's a trope that severely lowers the stakes in any story it's abused in. Looking at you Comics and DBZ...
True, it is campaign dependent. But Reviving is a feature that almost every party has access to at some point and in baseline D & D, SOMEONE is gonna get revived at some point. So basing an entire subclass on this, but then adding in a strange wrinkle that this character changes lives every time it happens is not cohesive with the gameplay mechanics provided. True, some DMs (me included) make it so that reviving is a traumatic experience, but that is the table's choice and not enforced in the DMG.
Revivify is a bit of a grey area when it comes to it though. It's more like the magical equivalent of CPR compared to the more troublesome Resurrection spells. That being said, I don't really think the 'Revived Rogue' is a result of a Revivification spell itself and more the rogue having done something (either now or in the past) that allowed them to 'Cheat Death'. Possibly a deal with an entity, possibly being killed in the presence of a powerful magical artifact, possibly just the act of 'dying' was the trigger for this new state.
In this way, it's somewhat similar to the Soul Knife (Back on topic! HA!) in that the trigger for the powers may have happened long before the powers themselves manifested. Sure you got your Death/Telepathic powers a while ago, but they had to grow with you before they could really become usable in any meaningful way. Your DM might even give you some stuff early if the first 3 levels are going to take a while, like a 'vibe' or a random read on an NPC to foreshadow your later telepathic powers, or randomly cause a Bolt from the Grave to occur at level 2 when the rogue accidentally triggers the condition causing a shock to the party who are none the wiser. The nice thing about this is, you can just retcon the 'trigger' into your backstory rather than having to include it in the initial design.
Spoiler for my thoughts on Revived rogue. I'm putting it here because I think it's a little relevant, but I'm spoiler tagging it to avoid derailing the thread itself.
The Revived Rogue has two distinct aspects to it. The first aspect is the Past Lives concept that is front and center in the description but takes a WAY backseat in the mechanics, represented by the following:
Tokens of Past Lives: The core of this aspect is the Tokens, past life memories and skills bubbling to the surface. The issue here is two fold, 1 Rogues have enough skills to get what they need, and 2. in most cases this is going to end up being the same skill used all the time and only rarely swapped out. So I'd change this to being Expertise in a skill and also 'When you get this trait, choose a list of 8 skills and Tools you do not already have Expertise in. At the end of each long rest, roll a D10. On a Result of 1, no change occurs, on a 2-9 choose the skill on the list, on a result of 0 (10) you may choose the result you want.
And that's basically it. The whole of the core 'Remembering your past lives' schtick is in one ability that isn't even that subclass defining.
Now on to the second aspect is represented at the end of the description, you are now one of Death's representatives among the living (OMG Edgelord much?!), but it takes over the vast majority of the Mechanics.
Revived Nature: I have to admit, I find this one a little disappointing. The flavor is so light it might as well be non-existent. I'd recommend borrowing a bit of the Shadow Sorcerer here to fill it in. Mechanically Adv vs disease and poison and no need to Breathe are the standouts. The 'Trance' ability for a non elf is semi helpful for setting up watches.
Bolts of the Grave: The only actual Rogue ability in the entire subclass, and honestly the most jarring. There is just so much 'weird' going on here that its hard to get a bead on it. It's added to your Cunning Action, so it has essentially a 0 action cost, it's a Ranged Spell Attack that uses Dexterity so it is somehow both Spell and Physical at the same time. To be honest I have a hard time looking at this and trying to figure out what I'm seeing.
Connect With the Dead: This one attempts to ride the line between the Past Lives and the Deaths Representative aspects, but at the end of the day I put it here. Speak with Dead is an obvious give away but the 'stealing an aspect of the other soul' is definitely more in line with the Deaths Representative, I'd even go as far as to say your DM rolls the dice and tells you what you get from the Corpse, rather than you choosing the language/skill/save result since the spell has an obvious target and pulling Goblin, Navigator Tools, and Charisma saves out of a Dwarven corpse is just....weird.
Audience with Death: Now let me just say that I love the idea of this one. Not for the accidental trigger, but for the intentional one. "We're all out of good ideas, so I'm going to need the barbarian to drown me in that river." Hopefully CPR is a thing in this world. However none of that is anything other than Deaths Representative and other than the Rogue "Penchant for Risky Plans and Terrible Ideas" it could be handed to anyone (if you've ever played a rogue, you know how much we LOVE our overly risky plans).
Ethereal Jaunt: Become a Ghost. I mean, I'm not even going to keep going here. Deaths Representative 100%.
Additionally, with the exception of the Bolts from the Grave, none of the Deaths Representative is Rogue specific. A slight Rework for that ability and you could have your first 'Class independent Subclass' capable of being applied to anyone. Which would be a fantastically interesting idea.
To me, the lost opportunity is in the Past Lives Remembered aspect. The Rogue being the most Skill Centric of the classes and having something that is designed around skills remembered is a great dovetail (As well as being Matt from Wheel of Time books). Combat wise, you could have combat skills of other classes start to bubble up randomly giving the rogue a randomly generated boon to deal with. Maybe the Rogue recalls their days as a Ranger an has the Archery Fighting style until their next long rest, or maybe they recalled their Fighter life and went from 1 attack to 3! How about Advantage on any History or Religion check since one of your lives might have actually been there. I'm not suggesting scrapping the Deaths Representative aspects, I'm recommending splitting the theme up and making two distinct subclasses out of it. The concept has enough there to make them both.
This is my thought for a psion monk, the way of the psion. basically it functions similar to way of the four elements, using ki to power spells. One of the things I always thought lame about four elements was lack of options (or interesting ones) for a subclass like that. So instead of getting one ability, you choose one of the orders and gain all powers associated with it. Then you can choose a new order at 6 and 11. Level 17 feature expands on one order which you already have.
I followed the orders and these from the unearned arcana minus soul knife because of the new rogue concept. I am curious about everyone's feedback. I wouldn't mind a monk psion that played like this:
True, it is campaign dependent. But Reviving is a feature that almost every party has access to at some point and in baseline D & D, SOMEONE is gonna get revived at some point. So basing an entire subclass on this, but then adding in a strange wrinkle that this character changes lives every time it happens is not cohesive with the gameplay mechanics provided. True, some DMs (me included) make it so that reviving is a traumatic experience, but that is the table's choice and not enforced in the DMG.
The subclass is based on the character having lived multiple lives already maybe even to the point those past lives may have even died of old age, it is basically used soul living again and again. Not that character having been revived by a spell.
So, I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to be up on the D&D website (maybe I'm not looking in the right spot?) but it looks like the survey for the UA psionic subclasses is out:
Where I have not read through the other 2 subclasses, I did go through the Rogue Phantom subclass because my player for my campaign asked if he could use it.
On first read through, it seems too powerful starting at level 3. I feel like it is giving a 3rd level character free magical weapons at their disposable, respectively. And I'm not entirely sure how the Psionic Talent die would work during playtime. I would be more inclined to let my player use this subclass if it was based similar to that of the Monk's Ki. So at level 3 the player gets 3 uses of "Psychic Ki". The player can get those uses back after a short rest like the Monk. And as the player levels up, he/she will gave 1 additional use per level.
The other thing I would tweak is making "Psychic Blades" feature for Level 6, not Level 3, so that the player doesn't get 2 powerful features at level 3. The rest of the subclass features are good as is, but I would drop the "unless you decrease your Psionic Talent die by one die size to use this feature again" since in the modified version I would use would have check use boxes instead of relying on dice roles.
Where I have not read through the other 2 subclasses, I did go through the Rogue Phantom subclass because my player for my campaign asked if he could use it.
On first read through, it seems too powerful starting at level 3. I feel like it is giving a 3rd level character free magical weapons at their disposable, respectively. And I'm not entirely sure how the Psionic Talent die would work during playtime. I would be more inclined to let my player use this subclass if it was based similar to that of the Monk's Ki. So at level 3 the player gets 3 uses of "Psychic Ki". The player can get those uses back after a short rest like the Monk. And as the player levels up, he/she will gave 1 additional use per level.
The other thing I would tweak is making "Psychic Blades" feature for Level 6, not Level 3, so that the player doesn't get 2 powerful features at level 3. The rest of the subclass features are good as is, but I would drop the "unless you decrease your Psionic Talent die by one die size to use this feature again" since in the modified version I would use would have check use boxes instead of relying on dice roles.
That's my 2¢
Letting a character get a magic weapon that does 1d6 of a magical damage type at 3rd level so crazy. It's pretty standard actually.
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Pretty much this. I actually quite like the idea of Bolts from the Grave, but it doesn't make sense coming from someone who is "revived"... but also the whole concept of the revived is strange because revivification is a fairly common thing at high level DnD and these powers clearly don't come from that.
They need to focus on a specific thing, and a Rogue who can speak to the spirits of those they kill is a pretty cool concept (it's almost like that ability in Assassin's Creed where you have a conversation with the person you just gutted). Maybe just make it so that your Sneak Attack damage is necromantic and if you were to kill an enemy with it you can capture their soul for interrogation/gaining abilities. Once you are done with the soul you can expend it into an AOE fear nuke or something.
Now, to swing this conversation back to Psionics: Repurposing Bolts from the Grave into a reaction that shoots PSYCHIC lasers... that could be fairly interesting. Not sure what kind of class it would be attached to though. Maybe call it Aneurism and can only be used if you didn't use sneak attack in your last turn. Using your reaction to fire this bolt will force the opponent to make a Int saving throw and if they fail they take full sneak attack damage and are stunned until the end of your next turn (allowing you to have advantage on your next attack and thus MORE sneak attack damage). Actually, if you lifted some of the features from the Revived and placed them into a Psionic class and it would make WAY more sense.
Take Tokens from Last Lives and rename it Reformat. Instead of gleaning things from passed lives your just use psionics to reprogram your brain while sleeping. Bolts from the Grave becomes Aneurism. Give this new class the Telepathy from Soul Knife at level 3. Then just make the class a more Support based Rogue like the Mastermind with abilities that allow you to read surface thoughts OR delve deeper into a victim's mind for more psychic damage. You could even roll in things like Jlwofl2's Puppeteer idea and have it so that you eventually can take over your victim's body psionically.
See, this is why I want Psionics available to every class in the game. Such a diverse, untapped power fantasy that we don't really have yet besides the Great Old One Warlock.
How commonplace revivification is depends on the campaign and DM's prerogative. Spells that bring people back from the dead are extremely rare in my campaigns simply because it's a trope that severely lowers the stakes in any story it's abused in. Looking at you Comics and DBZ...
True, it is campaign dependent. But Reviving is a feature that almost every party has access to at some point and in baseline D & D, SOMEONE is gonna get revived at some point. So basing an entire subclass on this, but then adding in a strange wrinkle that this character changes lives every time it happens is not cohesive with the gameplay mechanics provided. True, some DMs (me included) make it so that reviving is a traumatic experience, but that is the table's choice and not enforced in the DMG.
Heck revivify is a 3rd level spell]
Revivify is a bit of a grey area when it comes to it though. It's more like the magical equivalent of CPR compared to the more troublesome Resurrection spells. That being said, I don't really think the 'Revived Rogue' is a result of a Revivification spell itself and more the rogue having done something (either now or in the past) that allowed them to 'Cheat Death'. Possibly a deal with an entity, possibly being killed in the presence of a powerful magical artifact, possibly just the act of 'dying' was the trigger for this new state.
In this way, it's somewhat similar to the Soul Knife (Back on topic! HA!) in that the trigger for the powers may have happened long before the powers themselves manifested. Sure you got your Death/Telepathic powers a while ago, but they had to grow with you before they could really become usable in any meaningful way. Your DM might even give you some stuff early if the first 3 levels are going to take a while, like a 'vibe' or a random read on an NPC to foreshadow your later telepathic powers, or randomly cause a Bolt from the Grave to occur at level 2 when the rogue accidentally triggers the condition causing a shock to the party who are none the wiser. The nice thing about this is, you can just retcon the 'trigger' into your backstory rather than having to include it in the initial design.
Spoiler for my thoughts on Revived rogue. I'm putting it here because I think it's a little relevant, but I'm spoiler tagging it to avoid derailing the thread itself.
The Revived Rogue has two distinct aspects to it. The first aspect is the Past Lives concept that is front and center in the description but takes a WAY backseat in the mechanics, represented by the following:
Tokens of Past Lives: The core of this aspect is the Tokens, past life memories and skills bubbling to the surface. The issue here is two fold, 1 Rogues have enough skills to get what they need, and 2. in most cases this is going to end up being the same skill used all the time and only rarely swapped out. So I'd change this to being Expertise in a skill and also 'When you get this trait, choose a list of 8 skills and Tools you do not already have Expertise in. At the end of each long rest, roll a D10. On a Result of 1, no change occurs, on a 2-9 choose the skill on the list, on a result of 0 (10) you may choose the result you want.
And that's basically it. The whole of the core 'Remembering your past lives' schtick is in one ability that isn't even that subclass defining.
Now on to the second aspect is represented at the end of the description, you are now one of Death's representatives among the living (OMG Edgelord much?!), but it takes over the vast majority of the Mechanics.
Revived Nature: I have to admit, I find this one a little disappointing. The flavor is so light it might as well be non-existent. I'd recommend borrowing a bit of the Shadow Sorcerer here to fill it in. Mechanically Adv vs disease and poison and no need to Breathe are the standouts. The 'Trance' ability for a non elf is semi helpful for setting up watches.
Bolts of the Grave: The only actual Rogue ability in the entire subclass, and honestly the most jarring. There is just so much 'weird' going on here that its hard to get a bead on it. It's added to your Cunning Action, so it has essentially a 0 action cost, it's a Ranged Spell Attack that uses Dexterity so it is somehow both Spell and Physical at the same time. To be honest I have a hard time looking at this and trying to figure out what I'm seeing.
Connect With the Dead: This one attempts to ride the line between the Past Lives and the Deaths Representative aspects, but at the end of the day I put it here. Speak with Dead is an obvious give away but the 'stealing an aspect of the other soul' is definitely more in line with the Deaths Representative, I'd even go as far as to say your DM rolls the dice and tells you what you get from the Corpse, rather than you choosing the language/skill/save result since the spell has an obvious target and pulling Goblin, Navigator Tools, and Charisma saves out of a Dwarven corpse is just....weird.
Audience with Death: Now let me just say that I love the idea of this one. Not for the accidental trigger, but for the intentional one. "We're all out of good ideas, so I'm going to need the barbarian to drown me in that river." Hopefully CPR is a thing in this world. However none of that is anything other than Deaths Representative and other than the Rogue "Penchant for Risky Plans and Terrible Ideas" it could be handed to anyone (if you've ever played a rogue, you know how much we LOVE our overly risky plans).
Ethereal Jaunt: Become a Ghost. I mean, I'm not even going to keep going here. Deaths Representative 100%.
Additionally, with the exception of the Bolts from the Grave, none of the Deaths Representative is Rogue specific. A slight Rework for that ability and you could have your first 'Class independent Subclass' capable of being applied to anyone. Which would be a fantastically interesting idea.
To me, the lost opportunity is in the Past Lives Remembered aspect. The Rogue being the most Skill Centric of the classes and having something that is designed around skills remembered is a great dovetail (As well as being Matt from Wheel of Time books). Combat wise, you could have combat skills of other classes start to bubble up randomly giving the rogue a randomly generated boon to deal with. Maybe the Rogue recalls their days as a Ranger an has the Archery Fighting style until their next long rest, or maybe they recalled their Fighter life and went from 1 attack to 3! How about Advantage on any History or Religion check since one of your lives might have actually been there. I'm not suggesting scrapping the Deaths Representative aspects, I'm recommending splitting the theme up and making two distinct subclasses out of it. The concept has enough there to make them both.
This is my thought for a psion monk, the way of the psion. basically it functions similar to way of the four elements, using ki to power spells. One of the things I always thought lame about four elements was lack of options (or interesting ones) for a subclass like that. So instead of getting one ability, you choose one of the orders and gain all powers associated with it. Then you can choose a new order at 6 and 11. Level 17 feature expands on one order which you already have.
I followed the orders and these from the unearned arcana minus soul knife because of the new rogue concept. I am curious about everyone's feedback. I wouldn't mind a monk psion that played like this:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/327686-way-of-the-psion
The subclass is based on the character having lived multiple lives already maybe even to the point those past lives may have even died of old age, it is basically used soul living again and again. Not that character having been revived by a spell.
Tbh that "multiple lives" thing really sounds to me like a monk subclass and not a rogue one, because of reincarnation budhism.
To me, it seems more like a Sorcereous Origin, like you have multiple lives, and the force that keeps reincarnating you now has granted you powers.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
To me it sounds more like a background than a class.
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This^
Maybe all of the above, different ways to theme it for different subclasses.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
So, I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to be up on the D&D website (maybe I'm not looking in the right spot?) but it looks like the survey for the UA psionic subclasses is out:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1208513697238245376
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5342283/D-D-UA-Survey-44-Fighter-Rogue-Wizard
Thanks for the heads-up.
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It sounds to me like Matrim Cauthon
Where I have not read through the other 2 subclasses, I did go through the Rogue Phantom subclass because my player for my campaign asked if he could use it.
On first read through, it seems too powerful starting at level 3. I feel like it is giving a 3rd level character free magical weapons at their disposable, respectively. And I'm not entirely sure how the Psionic Talent die would work during playtime. I would be more inclined to let my player use this subclass if it was based similar to that of the Monk's Ki. So at level 3 the player gets 3 uses of "Psychic Ki". The player can get those uses back after a short rest like the Monk. And as the player levels up, he/she will gave 1 additional use per level.
The other thing I would tweak is making "Psychic Blades" feature for Level 6, not Level 3, so that the player doesn't get 2 powerful features at level 3. The rest of the subclass features are good as is, but I would drop the "unless you decrease your Psionic Talent die by one die size to use this feature again" since in the modified version I would use would have check use boxes instead of relying on dice roles.
That's my 2¢
Letting a character get a magic weapon that does 1d6 of a magical damage type at 3rd level so crazy. It's pretty standard actually.